Kehoe Eastern Migration - Journal 5


3pm EST, Monday June 28, 1999 (cont'd) Arriving into Augusta on the 28th about 2 or 3 in the afternoon, we got a copy of the Kennebec Journal at Barnes + Noble and looked over rental opportunities for Brendan's mom before we actually arrived at her apartment. (Her landlord's giving hints that they're likely to sell her place, as part of taking care of some other personal matters.)

We left Alice's in the late afternoon, I think, equipped with a ton of food from her. We'd made a reservation at the Augusta Hotel (best deal), but then went with Motel-6 (better deal---wasn't listed in the yellow pages when we were bargain shopping). We saved more than $10/night by going with them.

2pm EST, Tuesday June 29, 1999 We had Mammy's car towed to Smith's Exxon repair place and visited with her for the day. We got to know her cute kitty Shiba, though we both felt guilty for being allergic to cats. :)

5pm EST, Wednesday June 30, 1999 On Wednesday we went to the first (1:10pm) showing of the South Park movie at the ten-theater place in Augusta. After the show, Elana called her friend Anne who produced the film and found out some neat little tidbits about it.

Mammy came down with something; we ended up picking her up some medicine and soup and then going down to Islesboro early (we'd aimed for Thursday or Friday originally). Dinner was the four of us on the second floor at Oliver's, the only dinner restaurant on the island, from what we can tell.

9pm EST, Thursday July 1, 1999 Thursday July 1st was lobster night. Yum. Fresh from the ocean, even. In the afternoon we went to Maine Sport in Camden (that's ``off-island''), and scored two awesome huge bags for all of our stuff. We then went to Rockland (the "big city" closest to us) to buy some birthday presents for Elana's mom.

9pm EST, Friday July 2, 1999 Friday night the 2nd was an outside potluck garage party at the Durkee's, with a large group of people (about half of the year-round residents of Islesboro) and an unbelievable amount of food. Each time we turned around, more food was coming in. Surprisingly, not much was left at the end of the night. Much of Thursday and Friday was spent packing.

11:30pm EST, Saturday July 3, 1999 Saturday the 3rd was Elana's 10th annual high school reunion. When it finished around 10:30pm we went back up to Augusta to the Motel-6. Elana had a blast, and got a collection of pictures that she was able to put on a web page for everyone.

5pm EST, Sunday July 4, 1999 (Independence Day in the US) On Sunday, we went back to Mammy's apartment at 10am to meet up with Mammy and Derry. Stayed there til around 3:30pm or so and had a delicious spaghetti late lunch/early dinner. Derry ended up unable to rent a car, and got his friend Aaron to give him a lift both to and from Logan airport (a four hour drive each way).

We took the last ferry back over that afternoon. On Friday or Saturday we'd decided to sell our Saab, and put together info on the following Tuesday, for signs to post around the island. Elana's still heartbroken over that one.

9pm EST, Monday July 5, 1999 Monday the 5th was Elana's mom's birthday. For dinner, their neighbors Mel and Kimberly Tucker took all of us around the island then to Castine on their boat for dinner. We just managed to outrun a storm (Mel did a great job piloting the boat). We saw John Travolta's house (he and E's parents share a cove), and Parker Stevenson's "cottage" that he got in the divorce settlement with Kirstie Alley.

On Monday we were able to get an apartment to ``let'' for nine days when we initially arrive in Dublin. Supposedly it's in a very tony area of Dublin, but we just got it cause it was central and near the DART (the commuter rail in Dublin) and not too expensive. Really.

3:45pm EST, Tuesday July 6, 1999 Tuesday was our last packing day. We set a goal of having everything completely done by 4:30pm, and only overran that goal by like 15 minutes. We parked our car in line for the ferry, so we knew it'd be able to make the early morning one.

We got to hang around with the horses a little today. Mom and Terry got the first two, Hortense and Elias, a few years ago, and then they got the next two, Harry and Fairman. Since they have a farm, they have room for all these beasts. :-)

9pm EST, Wednesday July 7, 1999 Got up early and Elana saw her parent's horses, looking dead. Mom assured us that they are just napping. We hope so. On Wednesday, we caught the 8:25am bus in Lincolnville, which we took down to Logan (got there around 2pm, after some slight traffic delays en route). $31 per person. They played two movies (there were 5x5" TV screens intermittently throughout the bus); first was ``You've Got Mail'' between Lincolnville and Portland. ``Just the Ticket'' followed for the leg from Portland to Boston.

We'd been leaving messages with Yolanda at the credit union, and finally learned that the wire transfer form was a one-shot deal. We couldn't have a ``standing'' one for multiple transactions. So we'll just go with depositing a check from our credit union account, and be patient.

11:30am EST, July 8, 1999 In Boston today (Thursday the 8th), Boston Common park has an awesome ``wading pool'' that's consistently shallow all the way across. In the winter it is a skating pond. Also saw a batch of adorable ducklings---so tiny they'd each fit comfortably in the palm of your hand.

Everytime someone asks during our trip where we're moving to, they react with surprise and say it's a great idea. We nod and smile as they share their thoughts on why they wish they'd done a similar change in their lives. Telling them how much we're looking forward to it, they (we believe) don't catch us when we look at each other with a split second glance of ``oh my GOD are we really doing this??''

We're eating sushi at Kaya in downtown Boston. Staying at the Seaport Hotel, and due to check out around 3 this afternoon. There was a guy cleaning our windows today. Neither of us could do *that* job!

Tokens for ``the T'' (the subway) are 85 cents each.

A radio station had a promotion in Copley Plaza at lunch time today. A stage was set up, and Bud Collins from NBC (sports commentator who was just at Wimbledon) was on stage with another man and each had a tennis racquet. There was a HUGE crowd of people, and some tennis balls in a net above the stage. They counted down, pulled the string to release the balls...and nothing happened. The balls were stuck.

They yanked on every string they could. After about five minutes, the balls started to drop (along with someone's reputation for this sort of thing). They started throwing balls out into the audience, and any that went on stage were hit with the racquets out deep in the crowd. People were screaming at the back for more. Turns out there were cuts in each tennis ball and each one had something small in it...except for two. There was a set of Bruce Springsteen tickets and a Rolex watch. The rest had coupons for things or radio station stickers. We don't think they know who won them. A ball came quite close to us, but since we only thought that there were Springsteen tickets in it, we let it go. Heck, there wasn't anything in it but a coupon...we saw the guy open it. If the Rolex was in there....AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. That would suck.

7pm EST, July 8, 1999 We're sitting in the bar near the gate at Logan. We both think that security is a little lacking, since they barely looked at us and let E walk though with her reel in hand and didn't ask about it. Then, Brendan sees them opening a bag and searching it. He says, "Wow, they do full bag searches here. Someone over there is apparently going to have to figure out another way to pack their teddy bear." I said "Really? Who?" And he said, "I'm assuming it will be someone other than the guy in the suit who's standing next to it..."

They're calling for boarding our flight, more later. Don't know if we'll get to upload this or not, we'll see!


Brendan Kehoe
Last modified: Sat Jul 24 13:25:57 IST 1999